


you look good on the dancefloor

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bitty and Chowder Having a Stretch-Off, Childhood Ballet Headcanons, Embarrassing Childhood Photos, M/M, dancing in the kitchen, limited dialogue for people who don't like non-Russian speakers trying to approximate Tater's voice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12958479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: Ransom and Tater both did ballet as children, and it means Ransom finally has something to talk to him about.





	you look good on the dancefloor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [palateens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/palateens/gifts).



Ransom and Tater both did ballet as kids.

It shows most when Tater does lifts. He loves lifts–there’s a photo on his instagram of him holding his mom above his head, his mom in a handstand. (He’s also a huge devotee of planking in unusual locations, which probably makes him more conspicuous on the streets of Providence than being 6′4″ and an NHL star combined). Tater has little balletic grace, except when he’s punching people, but he obviously knows the positions.

So he joins in when Ransom, Bitty, and Chowder get into a stretch-off, because C beats everyone in the splits but Bitty can press his shin to his forehead from a standing start, and Ransom and Tater both know they’re falling behind but they try, wincing and groaning. Finally Tater just gestures to Ransom, his face contorted with pain, to ask Ransom to pull another two inches down into his hamstring stretch. Ransom does, cooing encouragements and endearments (well, okay, “bro”) and actually managing to talk to him for the first time. Tater still loses and Bitty and Chowder high-five, looking very smug.

Grumbling, Tater shakes his arms and legs loose and declines Bitty’s smugly gracious offer of a bag of frozen peas. Bitty leaves the bag on the counter for him, obviously in case he changes his mind. Everyone else moves on, but Ransom’s still a moth, so he’s happy to look at the pictures Tater wants to show off on his phone.

Little Alexei must be six or eight or something, baby-cheeked and furiously stern, stretching his leg at the barre in one picture, kneeling like an anguished prince in another. Then, as sudden as the sun coming out behind a cloud, he’s smiling in sweatpants and a t-shirt with Grimace and the Hamburglar on it, doing the splits on someone’s living-room floor. He smiles at Ransom, still proud of his little self.  _Here, see?_

The next pictures are of tiny him playing hockey, and Ransom would love to see that, but Tater makes a dismissive noise and locks the phone.

Ransom has to cough up, then. He goes to his sister’s Facebook, where her dance photos are all neatly labelled by year, company, and production. He has to go back to 2004 to find something properly embarrassing, where they’re all in those stupid jewel-toned bloomers he hated, and he has bright green triangles painted over his eyebrows and cheeks, like a clown, and Tater laughs so hard he doesn’t look self-conscious anymore.

It’s worth it. Ransom wants to go back to his little eight-year-old self and tell him:  _All of this will be entirely worth it one day._  Because Tater claps his back, rubs it up and down like you would an old friend, asks him if he wants a drink. Ransom soaks up Tater’s smile like the sun.

Tater loves lifts–it’s how they got into this mess–but  _Tater can’t swing dance._  He doesn’t even know what that  _is._  Ransom has to show him videos on YouTube.

And then he’s found the keys to the kingdom, as Tater seizes his hands, demands a lesson. Right then. Right now. The two of them, dancing in Bitty’s kingdom.

Ransom makes a mental note to thank his mom for putting him in ballet.


End file.
